YOU may well have seen Camilla Thurlow leap backwards into a 60ft ravine on Sunday’s SAS: Who Dares Wins episode.
Or witnessed Jack Fincham trying to launch his boxing career in the Good Morning Britain studio a few days earlier.
Channel 4 Channel 4’s Naked Beach should have been called Love Handles Island
But you haven’t really grasped the true hold Love Island has on British television until you’ve seen a naked “Zebra” woman twerking away her insecurities, not 20 minutes after Channel 4 News has finished dissecting the Mueller report.
One of many flabbergasting cameos offered up by Naked Beach, a made-for-Gogglebox series which owes such a debt of gratitude to the ITV2 show it should be called Love Handles Island.
It’s never credited directly here but thanks to “media images”, and blah-blah-blah Channel 4 narrator Tamzin Outhwaite assures us: “Britain is now in the grip of a body image crisis.”
It’s not, clearly, and, aside from one case of vitiligo, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the three Naked Beach guests a bit of exercise and a time machine wouldn’t cure.
(Channel 4 images must not be altered or manipulated in any way) CHANNEL 4 PICTURE PUBLIC The show featured eight naked hosts (including Jsky, pictured) who are all wearing nothing but body paint
We live in the age of victimhood, though, so Channel 4’s flown them out to the Greek Islands and aims to “transform the way they feel about their bodies”, by flashing their ar*es on pre-watershed prime time.
Here there’s a Love Island-style villa and eight naked “hosts”, who are a little on the over-friendly side.
A couple also have daft names (Jsky and Lala) and, just to heighten the cultist feel, they’ve all been body-painted to look like zebras, leopards, parrots and serpents, in a delightful splash of vegan vomit green.
Their job, it is, to nudge, coerce and generally hug the three guests out of their gear.
Naked Beach doesn’t get seriously weird, however, until they introduce the “therapy”, which has been devised by Natasha Devon “MBE” and psychologist Dr Keon West who, academic livewire that he is, has noticed all sorts of things start looking more likely when you’re in a luxury villa surrounded by reasonably attractive naked people.A GROUP HUG OR FOUR
It starts with “mirror exposure therapy” (gawping at your genitals for 20 minutes).
Then they have to watch the hosts twerk, stretch and play tennis, before pro­gressing to the “five-minute flash” stage, which really has to be seen to be believed and involves two naked people surrounding themselves with towels saying the first dumb thing that comes into their heads, like: “Where’s my vagina?”
I dunno, wherever you left it, probably.
After that humiliation, the big reveal down at Naked Beach is probably a breeze and it’s no surprise at all to see everyone comply.
As regular Channel 4 viewers, and anyone who saw Mums Make Porn know, the sly sods have realised there’s nothing punters won’t go along with as long as you keep telling them it’s all about “positivity” and punctuate everything with a group hug or four.
(Channel 4 images must not be altered or manipulated in any way) CHANNEL 4 PICTURE PUBLIC Channel 4 has realised there’s nothing punters won’t go along with as long as you keep telling them it’s all about ‘positivity’
You may disagree, of course, and think the network is trying to solve a very real problem rather than just its own 8pm to 9pm scheduling headache, but there are two very good reasons I don’t begin to think this show is sincere.
Firstly, spout all the inclusive, right-on we’re-all-the-same-underneath platitudes you like, there is no one even nudging 50 here, because, let’s face it, old people aren’t going to attract the sort of target audience who are currently getting their Thursday evening jollies from the Naked Beach gang.
And secondly, it’s just bloody not, is it.
All agreed? Good. Let’s have a group hug then.
Naked Beach shows shocking nudity scenes air before 9pm watershed on Channel 4

Great TV lies and delusions of the month
Impossible Celebrities, Rick Edwards: “She’s smart, she’s funny, she’s too good for this show, she’s Francesca Martinez.”
British Made With John Prescott: “Pauline’s in for a treat when I get home.”
And Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins, Sam Thompson: “I’d describe myselfas bubbly, energetic, positive.”
’Cos I prefer Ant Middleton’s version: “Complete clusterf**k.”

Widow is Kate’s funeral
THERE are several very good television actors who are currently having the worst eight hours of their career, every Monday night, on ITV.
And there’s also Kate Beckinsale, who’s going through the motions like Gillian McKeith on a dysentery ward.
ITV In The Widow Kate Beckinsale is going through the motions like Gillian McKeith on a dysentery ward
She’s The Widow, Georgia Wells.
Except she’s not, as her Australian husband, Matt Le Nevez, is actually alive, locked inside a box, in the African jungle, where he’s probably wondering why Kate was fully clothed for all their bedroom scenes and praying his agent gets an early call from the Home And Away office.
Neither of them should expect any help from the writers, though.
The Widow is set somewhere between the present day, three years ago, seven years ago and probably a week last Friday.
At various points in between, she meets Charles Dance, Alex Kingston off Soldier Soldier, all sorts of stroppy ar*eholes with AK47s and a fat, blind Icelandic bloke who miraculously survived her husband’s jungle air-crash, along with just about everyone else on board, including the woman who blew the damn thing up.
Two Brothers Pictures �- Photos by Coco Van Oppens For viewers Thew Widow has gone from ‘entertaining’ to ‘entertainingly bad’ to just plain bad
A rollercoaster ride The Widow has been for viewers as well, having gone from “entertaining” to “entertainingly bad”, to just plain old bad, over the course of five baffling episodes.
From a purely professional point of view, however, it’s been worth the five-hour sacrifice just to flag up the difference between a complicated drama that’s worth the effort, like Line Of Duty, and a complicated drama where, for no good reason at all, Kate Beckinsale suddenly asks her husband: “What’s this?” And he replies: “It’s estate agents selling houses. I’ve no idea why I watch this s***.”
Me neither. Click.
The Widow: Kate Beckinsale’s Georgia is seen with a baby daughter in flashbacks

Quiz show doughballs of the week
Tipping Point, Ben Shephard: “The Gallic rooster is the emblem of the national football team of which country?”Daniel: “Tottenham.”
Ben Shephard: “On a standard watch face, what number is directly opposite 12?”Simon: “Zero.”
Ben Shephard: “Which relative of the cucumber is commonly grown for use as a bathroom or dish sponge?”Elizabeth: “The courgette.”
The Chase, Bradley Walsh: “What’s the total of Ali Baba’s Thieves and Snow White’s Dwarves?”Joel: “Forty thousand and seven.”

CHANNEL 5. It used to be all seedy, low-grade porn and Hitler documentaries.
Now it’s full of Ben Fogle travelogues and John Prescott.
Where did it all go wrong?

Random TV irritations

Over-excited Supermarket Secrets host Gregg Wallace reporting on lettuce harvesting like it was the moon landings.
Ant & Dec wasting their golden BGT buzzer on that fat dancer from India’s Got Talent.
Earth From Space’s greatest discovery turning out to be a load of penguin dung.
The collective executive failure to tell Nish Kumar comedy is no sort of career for a Michael Winner soundalike who isn’t funny.
And Stacey Dooley’s ex Sam Tucknott describing Kevin Clifton as a “full-on p***k,” without anyone from Strictly Come Dancing intervening to say: “I think we’ve found our new Darcey.”

Mamma Mia! He’s a wuss
EVEN allowing for preview tapes, it takes a lot to stop me watching Line Of Duty for a second and often third time on a Sunday night.
But Channel 4’s Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins has achieved the near impossible.
Pete Dadds. Channel 4 images must not be altered or manipulated in any way. This picture m Made In Chelsea’s Sam Thompson had some thoroughly deserved bollockings from Ant Middleton on Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins
To some degree, that’s down to the refusal of Made In Chelsea’s Sam Thompson to grow the hell up and all the thoroughly deserved bollockings he receives as a result from Ant Middleton and the other three staff.
There’s also the damning contrast between the lives of the show’s four Special Forces veterans and the celebrities.
So one minute you have war hero Jason “Foxy” Fox stoically recalling the experience of hauling dead comrades from the battlefield, the next actor Jeremy Irvine is complaining about the nightmare of having to get in shape for Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again: “Because you have to have a six pack for that . . . and that’s really tough.”
Yeah, it must be a living hell, Jeremy.
Pete Dadds. Channel 4 images must not be altered or manipulated in any way. This picture m Jeremy Irvine complained about the nightmare of having to get in shape for Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again
Then, in the middle of these two colliding worlds, 3,000 metres above sea level, in the Chilean Andes, cyclist Victoria Pendleton suddenly pipes up: “Imagine if we saw a polar bear!”
Yeah, well I’d imagine you might, if the truck drops you off at Santiago Zoo, but I suspect life is about to become hideously uncomfortable for you, Jeremy and Sam, which is why I’m totally hooked (Channel 4, Sunday, 9pm).

ON the final, very moving and historic episode of BBC2’s Pilgrimage: The Road to Rome, gay comedian Stephen K Amos came seeking acceptance when he was granted a very special audience with Pope Francis I, who told him: “We are all human beings.
“It does not matter who you are or how you live your life, you do not lose your dignity.”
Not seen his BBC2 show then, your Holiness?

Great Sporting Insights
Chris Hughton: “What I choose to do are the things I don’t have any choice to do.”Kris Boyd: “After Alex McLeish, someone needs to come in and carry the can forward.”Phil Brown: “Bolton are going from the kettle to a frying pan-type situation.”

EASTENDERS, Melanie Owen: “It’s never over is it, this thing? It’s never going to end, is it?”No. It’s not.

Lookalikes
THIS week’s winner is Stephen Merchant as the Grindr killer Stephen Port and Prince Edward. Sent in by Pete Wright, Datchet, Berks

Writer Jed Mercurio suddenly throwing everything up in the air by having Stephen “John Corbett” Graham’s throat cut, on a stunning Line Of Duty episode.
Simon Cowell stopping “human didgeridoo” Jayson Stillwell, halfway through his Britain’s Got Talent audition to ask: “Are you doing this as Kermit?” Comedian Mike Osman attempting the Ninja Warrior course dressed as Donald Trump.
And the entire Gogglebox cast dancing along to the male bird of paradise’s mating ritual, from Our Planet, which may be the happiest few minutes of television you watch all year.Line of Duty’s John Corbett is killed after a gang member slits his throat in shock scenes